HASSELVANDER, JOE

JOE HASSELVANDER "UNLEASHING THE HOUND"

Interview by Earthdog

BLUE CHEER...MOUNTAIN...PENTAGRAM...RAVEN...SAVOY BROWN....

Only one man had talent and drive enough to play with all of these
bands, a who's who of legendary hard rockers and metallers. He is Joe
Hasselvander and his career reads like the road map of modern heavy
music. In addition to playing regular drumming gigs with the above
bands, Joe has also sat in with the likes of Rainbow and Cathedral, as
well as becoming the mastermind of his own band, The Hounds of
Hasselvander. Other projects in his incredible career include Devil
Childe, Phantom Lord, numerous solo records and also a lot of producing
gigs.

Recently our own Earthdog picked his jaw off the floor long enough to
speak to Joe about his amazing run. As you will, there's plenty of fight
left in this hound!!!

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: Your life in music goes all the way back to
1966.Did you have any real musical ambition when you first started out?

JOE HASSELVANDER: My older brother was a very popular surf guitarist in
the 1960's and like all little brothers I aspired to do the things that
my older brother did especially witnessing his success in the
Washington, D.C. area where we grew up. Our parents really marveled at
our birth given abilities and encouraged both of us to choose music as a
career. Of course, in those days you could make a beautiful dollar in
that business unlike today! I was a natural at the drums and already
knew how to play as good as any adult professional at age 8! You also
have to remember that the music scene was full of bands actually
creating the genre of hard rock and inventing everything we know today
as the basic formulas used in pop music! These were highly exciting and
stimulating times for musicians everywhere! My ambition was on 10!

WC: You played in a jazz fusion band called Ra Notra Sextet.Did this have any affect on how you play the hard rock/metal stuff?

JH: Yeah! I got heavily in to Jazz fusion in 1972 after hearing albums
by Mahavishnu Orchestra and later seeing them at D.C.'s Constitution
Hall with Billy Cobham. This guy was a complete dynamo on the drums as
was Lenny White of Chick Corea's Return to Forever. This stuff just
knocked me out and inspired me to put together my own fusion group with
some ex-Berkley students who had some great material with bizarre beat
patterns and plenty of featured drum fill spots. It takes a certain
mentality to play this stuff and a lot of dedication and rehearsal! So
in hind sight I would say for sure I had a proper leg up on other
drummers when I went back in to heavy rock. Oddly enough, most younger
modern day Heavy Metal bands have a drummer with these same fusion
sensibilities!

WC: You played with one of my all time musical heroes Leslie West,what was that experience like?

JH: That was a dream come true for me! That was around the time Leslie
recorded "The Great Fatsby". Probably around 1976. I think I was 19
years old. I got a call from my agent who at the time was handling
Leslie in the area. He told me that Leslie's band had left him high and
dry with a bag full of local shows and wanted to know if I would play
drums for him and could I also get a bassist? I got my oldest friend
Steve Angel involved as he had been in a very successful D.C. band with
me called The Boyz and he, like me , knew all the Mountain material by
heart! We played the first gig with him, Mississippi Queen and all! I
remember that he couldn't believe that such young cats could do the
Mountain stuff so authentic to the original band. He kept asking us,
"How did you learn those songs?" We told him that we were weaned on
Mountain! We asked him what his next project would be and he confided
that he wanted to work with a symphony orchestra! Unfortunately he was
sick with diabetes and didn't know it at the time and was having some
health issues attributed to it and we kind of noticed. So he cut the
tour short and flew back to New York to check in to a hospital. Of
course , nowadays Leslie's got it all under control and is reasonably
healthy and equally as ornery!

WC: What was it like getting involved with Pentagram? Those first batch of songs have such a timeless feel to them.

JH: I joined Pentagram after meeting up with Bobby Liebling in 1977 when
the original Pentagram left him and my band The Boyz left me to form a
new "Super Group" called Sex! They were more like a "Super Mistake"! As
everybody knows Bobby and I ran in to each other at their miserable
debut and I asked him to come down and hear the new band I had formed.
Everything clicked and I built the band and a show around Bobby's stage
antics that for the first time gave him some real local celebrity. All
he had to do was show up and sing! So in 1978 this became the High
Voltage era Pentagram which produced one single "Living In A Ram's Head"
b/w "When The Screams Come"! That was the band that was the greatest
fun in the world for me because there was no metal scene anywhere at the
time and we were bringing in record crowds to the clubs just on sheer
curiosity and word of mouth about our highly strange show and ghoulish
heavy music! We were beating the odds in a big way!

But I think you're referring to Death Row which ultimately became
Pentagram revisited 3 years later and yes, Victor Griffin's sound and
song writing skills fit right in line with what Bobby and I were
writing, which gave us a huge catalogue of songs! Victor's material by
far was the deepest and heaviest along the lines of Witchfinder General
and "Master Of Reality" era Sabbath. I loved helping him tool in these
classics along with Marty Swaney. This band was totally self motivated
with zero management. But Bobby and Victor suddenly pulled a power play
on me by threatening my standing with the band as Bobby was doing his
usual manipulation game except this time with a 20 year old Victor
Griffin who wanted success no matter how he got it. I guess Bobby had
convinced him that I should just shut up and be the drummer or else!
That really cut me to the bone considering that I booked all the gigs,
rented the trucks, supplied the light and sound, roadied their gear and
provided the rehearsal space all free of charge. People who know me know
that I don't put up with unprofessional ego mania bullshit! So that was
the end of that until I moved to New York and hooked up with Dutch East
Records to do "Phantom Lord", "Devil Childe" and my solo album
"Lady-Killer".

I went in to their office to discuss album cover art for these records
when the owner, Barry, asked me if I had ever been in

Pentagram? I told
him yes and he informed me that he had just received master tapes from
them to review for signing. He asked if I was on it! I told him that I
was and he said "Good, we'll release it along with the other albums that
you've done." I don't think he even listened to it! He just gave the OK
and handed it to an employee to mail off for pressing. I found out then
the music business is indeed a small world!

WC: What was it in your opinion that held Pentagram back from making it
big? To me ,they sounded just as good as anything else around but for
some reason it never took off the way it should have.

JH: This is a big question that deserves a big answer! Pentagram has a
long history of failing right before their greatest successes. That
would be due to Bobby's Liebling substance abuse which is no secret.
People in the industry have known about this for years. These problems
has been around a long , long time! With that sort of life style always
comes a flurry of bad judgments, arrests, jail time and a criminal
record which makes it impossible to get through immigration to play
outside of the country in foreign markets that are receptive to the
band, further blowing out it's success. There is also a babysitting
issue for anyone involved with a person like this. As grown men, we just
couldn't roll like that for long with him. When I was in my early
20's,I was able to wear blinders and pretend there wasn't a problem but
when I wised up and went elsewhere, that became Victor Griffin's job and
almost his demise! He also got smart and started his own band Place Of
Skulls and hasn't looked back since! In the late "90's up until 2001, I
helped Bobby once again as everyone else had long given up on him and
recorded "Review Your Choices" and "Sub-Basement". I stood by him as
long as I could until he and a promoter pressured me into a show using
an under rehearsed band and headlining a festival where Bobby pulled a
classic no-show leaving me hanging out to dry with 200 angry Pentagram
fans! He managed to show up for the last two vocal lines of the last
song in the set!

For years I could hardly forgive myself for actually playing that God
awful gig and trusting my good name to such a dim wit! He also went on
to tear apart his next incarnation of Pentagram by falling out on stage
without singing a single note in front of 1000 people. I think it's
strange that the world's perception of Bobby Liebling as being
responsible for the band's successes whatever the version of the band!
The truth is, he has always done the minimum as opposed to everyone else
giving their maximum, to the group. I've learned long ago not to feel
sorry for career substance abusers, or you could find yourself falling
into their web of lies! None of us were angels but when it came down to
brass tacks it was time to work and not party but Bobby didn't grasp
that concept. As far as the man's song writing ability and vocal style
are concerned , he is somewhat of a genius and that can't be denied. The
sad part is, I've always loved the great music that was achieved by the
band! That is the constant downward spiraling paradox that is
Pentagram!

WC: You and Victor Griffin were asked to fill in the guitar and drum
slots for Cathedral as support band on the tour for Black Sabbath and
their "Cross Purposes" album in the spring of 1994.How did that come
about?

JH: Lee Dorian came out to a small Western Maryland club in 1993 on
Halloween night to see a Pentagram show. I think he was in the country
doing business for Cathedral's 'Ethereal Mirror" album. He apparently
had been a big fan for years as he claimed he had waited his whole life
for that moment! We later played a few co-headlining gigs with Cathedral
in D.C and New York. After that Victor stayed in touch with Lee after
they flew back to England. One day during a Pentagram rehearsal Lee
called and told us of the departure of their 2nd guitarist and drummer.
He explained that they had booked a tour with Black Sabbath in Europe
and that Cathedral were special guests on the tour.He then asked if we
would fill the empty spots left by their drummer and guitarist! We
agreed and off we went!

WC: On so much stuff that Pentagram have released , you play all the
drum and guitar parts on them. Do you like having so much work to do?

JH: I did those albums partly out of loving a challenge and partly out
of necessity! I always heard a certain type of sound in my head for
Pentagram and agreeably Victor Griffin had come the closest to finding
that sound in a 4 piece band. But I still heard something a little more
grandiose like a horror movie soundtrack! I had already done albums by
myself and new how to get just about every kind of sound or feel and it
was also cost effective for one person to do the work as it eliminates
all the cooks in the kitchen that bog down production. Besides, we
weren't receiving giant budgets from our label. But the two albums I did
as Pentagram proved to be the biggest challenges and also the most fun
to do even though I was working against the clock! It was painstaking
work!I had always wanted to put the perfect music around Bobby's unique
vocal style and I think I did that on "Review Your Choices" and
"Sub-Basement". It gave Bobby more freedom to experiment with his voice
which he so loves to do.

WC: You officially joined Raven in 88.I have been into the band since
Wiped Out.They seem to be totally over the top guys and performers.What
was it like joining them on stage for the first time?

JH: Quite frankly ,I took to them like a fish to water! I finally found
musicians that were as wound up inside as me and also musically my
equal. This is where my jazz fusion drumming paid off as Raven has so
many time changes , turn- arounds and manic double bass requirements.
I've always felt like I've known them since birth and they feel the same
about me. There's a kind of E.S.P. thing going on there between us on
stage and off! I'm also proud to say we've never had a major
disagreement in the 20 some years I've worked with them! I love all the
albums we've recorded together!

WC: Raven seem to me one of those bands that could be around forever,do you feel the same?

JH: I agree 100%! High energy Rock & Roll is infectious and can
survive many stylistic changes in the music business. We survived
Thrash, We survived Death Metal, We survived Grunge and we've survived
rap and Hip Hop. We've always kept our Rock & Roll roots and our
Priest and Sabbath sensibilities. That equals –TIMELESS!

WC: Your solo band Hounds Of Hasselvander have got some awesome
reviews.How do the solo tours compare to the other bands you have play
with and still play with?Do you feel a lot more free musically?

JH: In The Hounds Of Hasselvander I get to be the guitarist and front
man which is something in my musical life I've neglected doing and now's
the time! I love the guitar especially my "69 Gibson SG. It truly has a
voice of its own and sometimes completely surprises me with it's
droning overtones! I always feel free playing my own music with my own
arrangements and that has made some people accuse me of being a control
freak, but I know what that meter in my head says, "It's either heavy,
or it's not!"

WC: What are your plans for the next year? You seem to be busier now than ever before.

JH: The Hounds Of Hasselvander are going on tour in late April-May. We
are bringing a doom metal circus to the people of Italy with openers
Doomraiser and my old friends from New Jersey, Solace.This package is
going to kick major ass!

WC: You also played with Blue Cheer, that must have been a incredible experience.

JH: It really was! Anyone who knows me knows that I am one of the
world's biggest fans of that band and have been since I was 13 years
old. They are truly the fathers of Metal! My good friend Duck MacDonald
joined them in the mid '90's and was aware of my fondness of the band so
when Paul Whaley couldn't make it to the states from Germany for health
reasons. Duck called me and asked if I would like to play drums for
them on a few come back dates to promote the re-release of Vincebus
Eruptum on Universal Records and possibly record a new album. Needless
to say , that was a done deal! The gigs were monstrously heavy and as
authentic to the group's original sound as possible and later "What
Doesn't Kill You…"was recorded and later had extra tracks added as a
bonus with the return of Paul Whaley. So I got the best of both worlds
playing live and sharing the spotlight with my drumming mentor Paul
Whaley on the new album!

WC: How has the Doom scene progressed in your eyes?There are some great
bands out there but the scene is full of copy-cat bands ,do you agree?

JH: The Doom scene still hasn't reached its zenith and I'm hopeful for a
lot of new Doom, Stoner Rock and Retro-'70's bands to finally take it
into the mainstream.The world needs a good dose of some old medicine!

WC: Out of all you have done,what has been the most satisfying for you?

JH: Out of all the albums I've done, 5 really stand out and show what
I've got! That would be :
"Architect Of Fear"(Raven), "Relentless" (Pentagram), "Sub-Basement"
(Pentagram), "Under Savage Skies" (Jack Starr's Guardians Of The Flame),
"The Hounds Of Hasselvander"(Self Titled) and "Walk Through Fire"
(Raven) release date- early 2009

The most memorable single gigs were: Raven - Tokyo, Japan (Live Album
"Destroy All Monsters" is recorded and concert video is made) 1995
Raven - San Didros Festival in Madrid , Spain (We played to 40,000
concert goers!) 1989 Raven - Show in Athens, Greece 1990 Raven - Bang
Your Head Festival 2006(Raven kicked up a storm with the likes of White
Snake, Foreigner and Y&T and stole the day!)

WC: You were just on tour with Raven again, any plans on slowing down and how do you keep going?

JH: Yeah! We just did a tour of the U.K. and even though the state of
touring is slow over there at present we managed to pack a few places
and make a lot of people happy. Classic Metal is becoming hard to come
by and the fans really appreciate you coming to their hometown! On the
thought of slowing down, There is enough time to rest in the grave!!!!!